


Use Our Eyes, Throw Our Hands Overboard

by tothewillofthepeople



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Art, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Museums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 13:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15641703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothewillofthepeople/pseuds/tothewillofthepeople
Summary: Grantaire is a museum security guard. Enjolras doesn’t know much about art.





	Use Our Eyes, Throw Our Hands Overboard

**Author's Note:**

> i went to paris recently. i saw a lot of art. i also saw a security guard with curly black hair in the musée d’art moderne. this fic is the natural result of those three facts.
> 
> title from the [louvre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQkdwymDanE) by lorde, because, like, of course.

“So what do you do, then?” the girls asks, and she has to put her head right next to Grantaire’s so he can hear her. Bless small clubs, he thinks fondly. 

He’s out with Bahorel, which he should know better than to do, because going out with Bahorel actually means going out with around two to seven people he’s never met before. Bahorel makes friends easier than anyone Grantaire has ever met. His entourage is ever-rotating and fascinating. Grantaire has long since stopped trying to remember anyone’s name.

“I’m a security guard,” he says, and her eyebrows go up. She’s a design student somewhere, if he remembers their hasty introduction well enough, so he doesn’t hesitate to add, “At an art museum.”

“Oh, which one?”

“Musée d’Art Moderne.” He’s expecting her to frown, or wrinkle her nose, or roll her eyes or _something,_ and she doesn’t disappoint. Her mouth dips down.

“I was there last month,” she says. She leaves an unspoken weight hanging at the end of her sentence.

Grantaire smiles cheerily and takes a sip of his drink. “What did you think?”

“I mean, it was cool and all,” she said. “I don’t know. I think I just don’t get modern art, you know?”

They’re standing on the edge of a dance floor, finishing their drinks. Bahorel is nowhere to be seen. Grantaire doesn’t much feel like dancing. He doesn’t much feel like anything. He wishes he hadn’t bought a drink; it would be easier to leave without the glass, like an anchor, in his hand.

“Yeah,” he says. He’s had maybe a million iterations of this conversation. “I know what you mean.”

“Not to talk bad about where you work or anything,” the girl adds hastily, but he waves the apology away with one hand.

“And what about you?” he asks in return, and her eyes brighten as she tells him about her classes, clearly pleased to be back on comfortable ground.

She’s sweet. He wishes he was more awake, or more alive. Some time later, when he finally sees Bahorel in the fray again, Grantaire makes his excuses and goes to tell his friend that he’s leaving.

“You good?” Bahorel asks.

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Grantaire says. He shrugs one shoulder. “Long day. Do you want the rest of this?”

Bahorel accepts with a grin and drains the remnants of Grantaire’s drink in one long go. “You seem to be getting along with Toussaint,” he notes.

Grantaire tries to fix the name in his head. “She’s nice,” he says. “I’m just.” He doesn’t know. He can’t finish the sentence, just shrugs again.

“Get home safe,” Bahorel says, clapping him on the shoulder. Grantaire nods and ducks away. He gives Toussaint a kiss on each cheek—she seems disappointed to see him go, but doesn’t try to make him stay—and then he’s off, walking along the canal in a dark, gentle rain.

He sleeps like the dead. One of the virtues of afternoons shifts: he can be as nocturnal as he wants. It’s past noon when the sunlight in his apartment starts actually getting in his eyes. It’s like a modern sundial. Once it reaches his pillows, he knows it’s time to get up.

He has a text from Bahorel. _T was sad you left. want me to give her your number?_

Grantaire sighs at it. He doesn’t know. She was nice. He doesn’t think he’s looking for nice right now. Too much art in his system, maybe. Too much art and not enough of himself.

He doesn’t text Bahorel back.

He goes to work. He sits in his chair. He looks at the art, and the people looking at the art. Hours pass in a haze of color and diplomacy and wondering how long it will be before he tries his hand at his own art again.

It’s almost the end of his shift when his eye catches on a boy entering the room. 

He has blond hair, this boy. Cut short. He’s wearing white and he is scowling at the art like it has personally offended him.

Grantaire bites down a smile. There’s nothing to be gained from laughing at patrons. He sees all sorts in the galleries, and lord knows he’s heard an incredible number of ridiculous comments—Joly keeps saying he should make a twitter dedicated to them—but he’s never seen someone look so perturbed by a bit of ink and canvas.

It isn’t hard to spot frequent museum-goers. They have an aura of calm. Tourists are fast—they walk right up to an artwork and hardly look at it as they snap a picture, and then move on. Locals take their time, but Grantaire can still tell who’s being dragged along by their parents, or significant other.

This boy is alone. He looks at the art as it is, close and intent. But there’s no serenity around him. He’s standing perfectly still, arms crossed, frowning mightily at the colors in front of him.

Then he turns and catches Grantaire’s eye.

Grantaire immediately blinks and looks away. He’s not supposed to stare. He has a whole room to keep an eye on. People rarely transgress here—his museum sees a lot less traffic than the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay—but even so. How would he feel if something was damaged under his watch?

When he peeks again, the blond boy is headed directly for him, with all his consternation still heavy on his face.

Grantaire straightens in his chair. He arranges his own expression into something vaguely pleasant. 

“Bonjour,” the man says. Native French accent—not surprising. “Is there any chance you can help me find a particular artist…?”

“Of course,” Grantaire says. “Who are you looking for?”

“Deschamps,” the boy says, with a look of careful concentration, as though he had memorized it to make sure he got it right. It makes Grantaire smile despite himself.

“That’s just in the next room,” he says. “On the right when you walk in.”

“Thank you,” the man says. He walks away. Stops. Turns back around. “How late does the museum stay open today?”

“Until six,” Grantaire says. He won’t be here the whole time, thankfully. 

“Oh, good,” the boy says. He gives Grantaire a nod.

Grantaire really wants to ask him why the hell he’s pleased about more time at the museum when all the art makes him act like he’s undergoing a particularly annoying martyrdom, but he manages to hold his tongue. Barely. He likes this job; he’s not going to start bothering patrons just because they have nice hair.

The boy goes into the next room. Grantaire can see him through the doorway for a while, scowling at another canvas, but then he moves on and Grantaire’s shift ends and he leaves the museum and it’s raining again and it isn’t long before he’s back at Bossuet’s place, undoing a bottle of wine, not thinking about work. Thinking about anything, _anything_ else.

Then the blond boy is there the next day.

Grantaire is lounging back in his chair. It’s earlier in his shift, and the exhibits were just switched up so the room he’s in is New and Interesting, which doesn’t happen often. He’s still peering at a particularly fetching red work on the wall across from him when a flicker on the edge of his vision makes him look around and lock eyes with the same blond boy from yesterday.

The boy gives him a nod. Grantaire, caught off guard, can only nod in return before the boy’s attention shifts back to the art.

Okay, Grantaire thinks. Not unheard of. Art students usually come back to gape at the same things. But this boy doesn’t look anything like an art student. He’s a bit too…sharp. Stern. Grantaire could almost believe he was an art critic, if he didn’t know for a fact that the field is populated almost exclusively by old white men who pay more for their rent in a month than Grantaire makes in a year. This guy doesn’t fit the bill. But that frown of his!

Grantaire focuses elsewhere. Or tries to. Just like yesterday, he finds himself the center of that close attention once more.

“Back again?” Grantaire asks with a smile, before the boy can speak.

The boy nods and gives a bit of a shrug. “Just trying something new,” he says. 

“What can I help you with?”

“I was wondering if—well, this might be a ridiculous question,” the boy says. Despite the words he manages to sound entirely unselfconscious. “Do you know much background information about the art on display here?”

Grantaire leans forward and clasps his hands loosely in front of him. “A decent amount,” he says. This exhibit is new but he did some reading up on it when he heard it was being installed. Sue him—he likes art. “Was there something you wanted to know about the artist?”

“I was wondering if you knew her political leanings,” the boy says.

Grantaire blinks. He genuinely doesn’t know if he’s been asked that before. “Reigl? I’m…not actually positive,” he says. “Why?”

The boy shrugs. He has a frown now. “I don’t know much about art,” he says plainly. “Or how to…interpret it. I was hoping that if I knew where the artist was coming from it might provide some illumination.”

That’s…reasonable. Though a bit of a cold way to look at art, if Grantaire’s being honest. “I don’t know how politically-minded this collection is supposed to be,” he says. He’s pretty sure it’s more about liberation of the body—which, fair, can be pretty fucking political, but he doesn’t think that’s what this guy is getting at.

“I thought all art was political.”

“I mean, nothing is created in a vacuum, but do you know how many still lives are hanging up in museums?” Grantaire says, before he can stop himself. “Fruit bowls aren’t being painted as a call to liberate the masses, or anything.”

The boy is scowling. “Then what’s the point of them?”

Christ. Grantaire did not come to work today with the intention of giving an art history lecture. “They’re pretty low on the hierarchy,” he says. “Usually it’s just about arrangement and composition.”

The boy nods. He looks unhappy—no, that’s not the right word. Not disappointed, not concerned… Grantaire can’t put his finger on it. It’s like the guy has had an opinion confirmed and he’s mad about it. “Thank you,” he says, and then starts to walk away.

“Go see the Guernica exhibit at the Musée Picasso,” Grantaire says. The boy stops and turns around. “It’s good, they have a lot of information up about the Spanish Civil War and all. You might like it.”

“Thank you,” the boy says, looking slightly startled. He looks at Grantaire for a second longer and then nods. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Grantaire nods too. He feels foolish. He looks at the art. And the people looking at the art. He’s keeping them safe, he reminds himself. The people and the art. That’s his job.

When he glances around again the blond is gone.

Grantaire doesn’t see him again for the rest of the week. 

He tells himself he’s not sad about that.

Friday night means letting Bahorel take him out on the town again. It’s as inevitable as the approach of winter, the growth of children, the heat death of the universe. Someday the sun will explode, but on every Friday before that Grantaire will be clicking his shot against Bahorel’s and tossing it back like a goddamn professional.

Except that he kind of hates shots and has also been trying to Drink Less lately for a variety of reasons. So maybe not everything is inevitable. But it’s Friday, and he’s shouldering his way through a crowd of drunk German teenagers on his way to where Bahorel is sitting at the bar. 

“I feel older every time we come here,” he grouses in Bahorel’s ear, once he’s close enough. “I swear half of these kids aren’t legal.”

Bahorel snorts. “Glad you could make it,” he says, gripping Grantaire’s shoulder. “I’ve dragged another friend out, he never goes anywhere, it’s a tragedy… Oh, here he is. Enjolras, this is Grantaire, who I was telling you about.”

Grantaire turns and finds himself nose-to-nose with the displeased blond from the art museum. “Oh,” he says.

The boy—Enjolras—blinks at him. “Hello,” he says, surprised. “You’re the friend Bahorel keeps talking about?”

“Oh, god, what did he say?”

Bahorel breaks in. “Have you two met?”

“Yes,” Enjolras says, at the same time that Grantaire says, “No.” They both break off and look at each other, confused.

Grantaire is the first to recover. “We’ve talked,” he says. “But we were never introduced.” He holds out his hand. After a moment, Enjolras shakes it.

“I almost didn’t recognize you in…not a suit,” he says. His eyes sweep down to consider Grantaire’s outfit.

Bahorel’s eyebrows are at a height that seems medically impossible. “When did you see Grantaire in a _suit?”_ he demands, but then his expression clears before either of them can answer. “Oh, at work?”

Grantaire nods.

“Don’t get used to it,” Bahorel tells Enjolras with a grin. “We all but have to knock him out and stuff him into a nice jacket and slacks every morning, he hates it.” 

“It’s the uniform of the uninspired,” Grantaire says. “I have nothing against nice suits. If I could go to work in a burgundy silk suit every day, I would.”

“If you were rich enough to own a burgundy silk suit you wouldn’t have to work,” Bahorel says shrewdly. “Either that, or I would bow down to your superior power regarding thrift stores.” It’s a bold statement from him, given that he’s wearing a garishly awful floral print shirt that Grantaire remembers him buying for two euros at a flea market. Somehow it works. Grantaire and the laws of modern science are at a loss to explain how.

“Can I get you a drink?” Grantaire asks Enjolras. The blond shakes his head. Grantaire shrugs and signals the bartender.

He feels adrift. Lost at sea—if the ocean was suddenly populated with drunk teenagers and Bahorel. There’s usually a trajectory to these sorts of evenings: lots of drinks and his tongue in the mouth of the prettiest person who’ll have him. Or quiet nights of gently excusing himself and feeling maudlin on the walk home. Grantaire hasn’t figured out the formulas yet, but he can always see the result.

Tonight, though, he has no idea where things are headed. What he wants. What Enjolras might want. This is uncharted territory, and it has shitty music. “Do you want to find a table?” he says in Enjolras’s ear.

Bahorel is already off dancing. Enjolras nods. They push through the German teenagers again—they seem to have multiplied—and find a place to sit far enough from the carnage of the dance floor that they can hear each other speak.

Grantaire wants to ask how Enjolras knows Bahorel, but Enjolras cuts him off before he can. “I went to the Musée Picasso.” He fiddles with the collar of his shirt. “I didn’t get a chance to come back to your museum and tell you.”

Grantaire smiles. “What did you think?”

He leans back in his chair and puts the rim of his wineglass against his mouth. Not sipping, just holding it, while he watches Enjolras.

“I liked what he said,” Enjolras tells him. “About art not being made just to decorate people’s houses.”

“’It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy,’” Grantaire quotes. “Yeah, I thought you might appreciate that.”

“But at the same time,” Enjolras continues, and then pauses, trying to compose his thoughts. “I’ve never done acid,” he says slowly, “but I imagine that it feels how Picasso looks.”

Grantaire almost drops his damn drink. All his hard-won composure breaks and he lets himself laugh, properly, for what feels like the first time in ages. 

“I’m not going to apologize,” Enjolras says, resting his chin on one hand and watching as Grantaire struggles to catch his breath.

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Grantaire says. “I appreciate your bluntness.”

Enjolras blinks and leans back a little. “I—thank you?” He seems a little dumbstruck, as though no one has told him that before. Maybe no one has. He seems interestingly solitary, which would explain why Bahorel said he rarely goes out.

“You’re welcome.” Grantaire takes a sip of his drink. He’s still grinning. “I can’t tell if you liked the art or not, though.”

“Well, I—it’s not so much a matter of liking it as it is understanding it,” Enjolras says, giving a little shrug. It’s the first truly self-conscious gesture Grantaire has seen him make. “I have a friend who always tells me I don’t understand art, so I was trying to, to remedy that situation. And Guernica is easy for me to understand. I know why Picasso painted it. I appreciate that.” He gives Grantaire a close look. “Thank you for recommending it to me.”

Grantaire leans forward. “Is it not enough for you,” he asks, curious, “to just see a beautiful thing and think it’s beautiful?” Appreciation is his favorite pastime. Enjolras himself is a worthy subject, even slightly tousled and a little tired in the odd lighting of the club.

Enjolras looks at him for a long moment before he answers. “I don’t know,” he says. “I like there to be reasons.”

“Reasonable,” Grantaire replies glibly, and toasts Enjolras with the drink still in his hand. 

Enjolras rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile somewhere in the corners of his mouth. “What sort of art do you like, then?” he asks.

“Most things,” Grantaire says. “Impressionism—big fan of Monet. Most of your standard French artists, really, Romanticism and Neoclassicism… David and Delacroix and Ingres…” He breaks off, smiling. “Do you really want me to go on about it?”

“You work in the modern art museum,” Enjolras points out, frowning. “I was expecting your favorites to come from there.”

Grantaire shrugs. He has a complicated relationship with modern art, and he’s not drunk enough to go off about it just yet. “I’m devoted to beauty,” he says, and he looks at Enjolras just long enough to get the point across. “And I’m a sucker for Christian imagery. I make a terrible atheist. Have you seen any paintings of Saint Sebastian?”

“I don’t think I have.”

“Beautiful stuff. I mean, he’s always painted tied to a tree, shot full of arrows, but they make him so beautiful. Martyrdoms are a popular subject. An excuse to paint a contorted body. To show off. ‘Look at me, look at my superior grasp on anatomy,’ all of that.” He realizes that he’s rambling and takes a drink to cut himself off. “Anyway. What about you?”

Enjolras tips his head to one side. He doesn’t look bored, but Grantaire can’t quite read the look in his eyes. “What about me?”

“What other art do you like? I doubt it’s anything contemporary, from the way you scowl in my museum.”

Enjolras scowls at him anew. “I do not scowl,” he insists.

It takes a truly heroic effort for Grantaire to not laugh again. Someone ought to buy him a victory pint. “You look at the art like it has personally wronged your family,” he says. “You look at it like it’s just degraded a woman within your hearing.” (He’s willing to bet Enjolras is a feminist.) “You look at the art the way I look at the American tourists in my favorite café who take ten minutes to order a coffee because they can’t remember the word for _cream.”_

Enjolras has leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Are you done?”

Grantaire, because he’s a little bit of an asshole, pretends to take a moment to consider it. “Yeah, I’m good,” he replies.

“Like I said earlier,” Enjolras says, “it’s a matter of understanding.” Under the table, his foot has somehow drawn right alongside Grantaire’s. Grantaire’s attention is split between that tentative point of contact and the words coming out of Enjolras’s mouth—and the mouth itself, if he’s being very honest. Enjolras is lovely. All the details of him, all motion, the shift of light in his hair and on his skin. “Maybe I can give most art a pass for being beautiful, even if I wonder why we value it so much. But art that isn’t beautiful has to have another reason for being, and I don’t like it when I can’t figure out what that reason is.”

It’s a lovely evening. Grantaire has had so few of them lately. He’s on the brink of taking a deep breath and doing something stupid—like inviting Enjolras back to his apartment—when Bahorel drapes himself over Grantaire’s shoulders and starts yelling about another club he knows. He’s made a new friend. Grantaire recognizes the guy as having been with the dancing Germans, but he has a Polish flag on his t-shirt, so who can say? He doesn’t seem to speak any French apart from a few choice words about alcohol, and he’s beaming at Bahorel like they’re new best friends.

“I haven’t finished my drink,” Grantaire complains.

Bahorel picks it up and drains it. Polish Guy laughs and thumps him on the back.

“I think resistance is futile,” Grantaire says seriously to Enjolras as Bahorel bodily drags him to his feet.

Enjolras rises from his own chair with a rueful smile. “Unfortunately I won’t be joining you,” he says. Bahorel makes an unhappy noise. “No, I’m sorry, I have work in the morning.”

“Stay,” Bahorel complains. “Grantaire, tell him to stay.”

Grantaire looks at Enjolras. Opens his mouth. Almost does the stupid, brave thing. Instead he says, “The man has work, Bahorel, let him be. I’ll keep you entertained.”

Bahorel presses a messy kiss to the side of Grantaire’s face. Enjolras inclines his head in a silent thank you. Polish Guy creates a small diversion by liberating a pint from a nearby waitress and trying to drink it, which requires all of Grantaire’s tipsy diplomacy, and also his skills as a translator, even though he doesn’t even speak Polish.

When he looks up again, Enjolras is gone. He tries not to let it feel like a theme.

They go to another club.

Polish Guy can dance. If the universe were different, Grantaire might have had designs on him. But he’s too wrapped up thinking about Enjolras, and anyway, Polish Guy seems pretty enamored of Bahorel, even with the language barrier.

Grantaire begs off once Polish Guy manages to express his desire to hit another bar that he knows of across the city. Bahorel gives Grantaire a hug before he goes. “Get home safe,” Grantaire says, as he watches the two of them set off down the sidewalk together, leaning against each other like they’re sharing secrets.

They seem like they’ll be fine. Grantaire turns towards home, yawning.

He wonders if Enjolras is already asleep somewhere. In a small room in the city, somewhere not far from where Grantaire now walks. It’s funny to think about the whole of Paris spread out before him, full of houses and apartments with lives inside he knows nothing about, and it’s even funnier to know that somewhere there’s a specific boy sleeping in a specific room who, earlier that very same evening, had pressed his feet against Grantaire’s under the table. Had talked about art with him. Had smiled and scowled. Life, Grantaire decides, is sort of silly.

The thought doesn’t stop a fond smile from staying on his face the whole way home.

He has a shift the next day. An easy stretch of afternoon. It’s uneventful, until Enjolras walks in the door.

He doesn’t even pretend to look at the art. He makes a beeline right for Grantaire.

“Did you come in here just to find me?” Grantaire asks, amused.

Enjolras’s expression gets a little wide-eyed. “I’m not—I’m not trying to stalk you at work,” he says quickly. “Sorry. This was a bad idea. I can go.”

“No, stay,” Grantaire says, laughing, holding out a hand to stop him from backing away. “I’m glad you came. I’m just saying—you could have asked Bahorel for my number.”

“Bahorel lost his phone,” Enjolras says, still looking a bit sheepish. “His new friend texted me.”

“You speak Polish?”

“I had to run it through a translator,” Enjolras admits. 

“Why did Polish Friend have your number?”

“Bahorel gave it to him right before he lost his phone. He thought we should be friends—apparently our politics are similar.”

Grantaire squints. “Does _Bahorel_ speak Polish?”

Enjolras looks thoughtful. “Not as far as I know.”

It seems destined to remain a mystery. Grantaire shrugs and gives up. “What can I help you with?”

“Well,” Enjolras says. He shifts his weight from one foot to another. “I suppose I was wondering when you get off work.”

Grantaire grins. “Entertain yourself for like half an hour,” he says, waving a hand at the art. “Then I’ll be free.”

He realizes immediately what a big mistake he’s made, because he loves art and he’s certainly growing fond of Enjolras, and the two together in the same museum immediately makes it much harder for Grantaire to Focus On His Job.

Grantaire loves art. He also loves, loves, loves people interacting with art. Tourists who snap quick photos are annoying, sure. But the people who mimic the poses of statues, or sit down with their sketchbooks to draw what they see, or the way children look when they stand idly in front of some vast complicated canvas… He loves it. Joly always tells him that he could never quit his job; he’d miss the sheer aesthetic of it too much. Grantaire doesn’t like to admit how right he is.

Point is, Enjolras is very pretty. He looks like a natural extension of the art on the walls. As though the canvases had been waiting for an observer with gold hair, and now everything is in place.

It’s almost a relief when Enjolras moves into another room, casting a look at Grantaire as he does so. Grantaire needs to be guarding the art, damn it. His distraction could mean the destruction of someone’s masterpiece.

Even though the room he’s in today is almost completely empty, since everyone is buzzing about the new installation further down.

But _still._

When the half hour is up he stands, checks out with his boss, and goes to find Enjolras.

He’s standing in front of a Reigl painting again, one of Grantaire’s favorites. Arms crossed, chin tipped up slightly, eyes searching.

Grantaire wants to kiss him. Grantaire wants to paint him shot full of arrows like a martyr, wrists tied to a tree, head tipped back. 

He’s a terrible person.

“I’m free,” he says quietly, and Enjolras startles and turns around and smiles at him.

“Go for a walk with me,” he says.

Grantaire smiles back. “Gladly.”

The Seine, as always, is like a dark vein running through Paris. Even this late in the summer there are boat tours stuffed with tourists merrily making their way along, waving at the people on the bridges. It’s early evening, so the sun has already set at their backs as Enjolras and Grantaire walk alongside it, aimlessly heading more towards the center of the city. Grantaire is still wearing his tie, his slacks, but he has his black suit coat slung over one arm.

The conversation is tentative, more shy in the open air. Grantaire finds out that Enjolras is from Provence, that he moved to Paris a year ago, that his favorite season is winter, that he feels like he never has time to read as much as he wants to. He also learns that Enjolras walks slower when he’s thinking hard about something, that he runs his hands through his hair when he doesn’t know what to say, that his resting expression is rather like a frown.

“It was my friend—Courfeyrac, I mentioned him earlier?—who told me I know nothing about art,” Enjolras is saying. He hands his hands in his pockets. “He doesn’t study it or anything, but I think his parents used to drag him to art museums a lot when he was a kid, so he absorbed a weird amount of it. He wanted to go see some new Klimt exhibit all done in light, or something, and I didn’t know who Klimt was, and his friend—his name is Prouvaire—he started reminiscing about the kind of art that he likes, which is mostly the sort of thing in your museum, and I didn’t want to offend him by saying I didn’t see the point in it, so I decided to come by myself and see what all the fuss was about.”

Grantaire can’t keep a small smile from his face. Even when talking about his friends Enjolras keeps an interesting amount of composure. He loves them a lot, clearly, but he’s not very effusive, which makes the flashes of amusement or fondness that Grantaire _does_ see all the more valuable.

“And did you find what you were looking for?” Grantaire asks.

“I certainly found something,” Enjolras says. He states it plainly, very matter-of-fact. Grantaire can’t hide another smile. “And I certainly like to look at the art. I just still feel like there’s something I’m missing. Something I haven’t quite figured out yet.”

“Even those of us who devote our lives to art still spend a lot of time trying to figure it out,” Grantaire offers.

Enjolras shoots him a look. “Are you an artist, then?”

“Sometimes.”

They reach the Pont Alexandre. By unspoken agreement they turn to meander across it, looking down at the river. The water is slick and black. The city lights quiver on the surface. Grantaire feels an old, familiar desire to do a mad thing, like jump in the river, or climb the exterior of one of Paris’s many fine cathedrals. He looks at Enjolras. Enjolras is looking to the east, where the sun will eventually rise. Now the horizon is all false city dark, smeared with light. The breeze is just enough to play with the ends of his hair.

In the end, it’s easy. They’re leaning against the edge of the bridge, looking at the city. Shoulders brushing. Grantaire glances at Enjolras at the same moment that Enjolras glances at him, and it seems like the simplest thing in the world to kiss him. So Grantaire does.

It’s soft. Only a moment. Grantaire pulls back, opens his eyes. Enjolras opens his eyes too and they watch each other for a long moment.

“I was worried,” Enjolras says, “that you wouldn’t like someone who didn’t know anything about art.”

“You have other redeeming qualities,” Grantaire says. “And no, don’t frown at me, of course you’re absurdly pretty and of course that’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?”

It’s not a sin to be bold. “I noticed you first because your hair was gold,” Grantaire says. “I kept looking because of the way you scowled.”

“I don’t scowl.”

“I know.” Grantaire dares to kiss him again, quick. “You have an intensity that I like. Even about the things you don’t understand. That’s why.”

“That’s why,” Enjolras echoes. He turns his head away. Grantaire catches a glimpse of a smile. 

He looks back out over the river. His blood feels like it’s full of light. “I won’t make you declare anything in return,” he says quietly. He closes his eyes and lets himself settle in a soft dark. “I hardly know you. You hardly know me.”

“You told me to go see Guernica,” Enjolras says. “You hardly know me, but you knew exactly what I’d like. I wonder how careful you are,” he adds, and Grantaire opens his eyes again to look at him, “to pretend like you notice nothing, while noticing everything.”

“It’s my job to watch people watch art,” Grantaire says.

“It sounds so simple, when you say it like that.”

“Most things are.”

“This?” Enjolras looks back at him. “Is this simple?”

Grantaire reaches out to take Enjolras’s hand in his own. He raises it and presses a careful kiss to the palm. It feels like the only answer he knows how to give, and it isn’t much of an answer at all.

“I’d like to see you again tomorrow,” he says. His voice is soft and Enjolras is still looking at him and his face is pale in the dark. He smiles.

“Gladly,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> the judit reigl piece i had in mind was _homme_ (1968), which you can find if you scroll down on [this site](https://quefaire.paris.fr/53822/judit-reigl). it’s the red and black one, obviously.
> 
> guernica by picasso is [here](https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp). the klimt exhibit that enjolras mentions is [here](https://www.atelier-lumieres.com/fr/gustav-klimt).
> 
> some of my favorite st. sebastians are [here](http://kvothes.tumblr.com/post/137839866605/v-ersacrum-alessandro-vittoria-saint) and [here](https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/saint-sebastian/d98d334e-a7f4-44eb-9d7c-7cfc689a6d5b) and [here](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Guido_reni,_san_sebastiano.JPG).
> 
> and you can find me on tumblr [here](http://kvothes.tumblr.com/tagged/x)!


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